who designates whether information is classified and its classification level

In formal national‑security and government settings, information is designated as classified—and given a specific classification level—only by officials who have been formally granted classification authority under law and policy.

In the U.S. government (core answer)

For U.S. national‑security information, the people who decide whether something is classified and at what level are:

• The President and Vice President , who hold the highest original classification authority by executive order.

• Agency heads and senior officials specifically designated by the President , such as cabinet secretaries and some senior defense or intelligence officials.

• Other U.S. government officials who are delegated this authority by those top‑level officials, following strict rules and training.

These people are called classification authorities (often “Original Classification Authorities,” or OCAs). They:

• Decide if information must be protected for national security.
• Assign a level such as Top Secret, Secret, or Confidential based on how much damage disclosure could cause.
• Specify declassification instructions and mark documents accordingly.

Inside agencies and organizations

Once an OCA has set the rules and examples for what is classified, others in the organization apply those rules:

• Program managers and information owners decide if specific documents fall under an existing classification guide.
• Security or information‑assurance teams help interpret classification guides, check markings, and ensure proper handling.

• Many organizations use classification guides that spell out, topic by topic, what must be classified and at what level.

These personnel usually are not inventing new classified categories; they are applying the decisions and authorities already granted by law, executive orders, and agency policy.

Outside government / corporate context

In companies and non‑government organizations, “classification” refers to labels like Public, Internal, Confidential, or Restricted , and the decision‑makers are different:

• Data or process owners (for example, a product lead or finance chief) decide how sensitive their information is.
• Information security and compliance teams design the classification scheme and help assign levels.
• Automated classification tools may scan documents and auto‑label them based on rules, with humans reviewing edge cases.

Here, the goal is business risk reduction and regulatory compliance, not national security, but the basic idea—someone with defined authority sets the rules and assigns sensitivity levels—remains the same.

Mini example

Imagine a new military satellite program:

1. A senior defense official with OCA authority decides that technical details about the satellite’s capabilities, if exposed, would cause “exceptionally grave damage” to national security.
2. That official designates those details Top Secret and issues a classification guide describing which specific topics are Top Secret, Secret, or Confidential.

3. Engineers and analysts then mark their documents according to that guide, and security staff verify that the markings and handling match the required level.

In short, the formal designation and level of classified information come from authorized government officials (classification authorities) , while a broader cast of information owners, security teams, and sometimes automated systems apply those decisions in day‑to‑day practice.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.